JAPANESE GHOSTS And other Strange Creatures Excerpts were taken from Mangajin No. 40 ======================================================================== "OUR GOAL IS TO EDUCATE" BBS: NEO-TOKYO 2099 II INTERNATIONAL-(209) 924-6475/6:00 p.m.-7:00 a.m. FROM: THE SPY CREW ======================================================================== JAPANESE GHOSTS by Tim Screech The Japanese world of the supernatural comprises a dizzying array of characters from the humorously bizarre to the downright terrifying. In the 18th century, Toriyama Sekien attempted to categorize the many different types of ghostly beings that inhavit the Japanese landscape, it's heavens and its hells; the results of his efforts filled four huge volumes. GHOSTLY TERMS ============================================================================= OBAKE/BAKEMONO Literally, "Transforming thing." refers to any type of preternatural being. Comprises yokai and yurei, and can also be used more generally to refer to anything that is weird or grotesque. | | | _____________________________________________ | | | | YOKAI YUREI | Literally, "bewitching appari- Literally, "dim/hazy/faint | tion." Encompasses a wide spirit." Spirits of the dead | spectrum of ghouls, goblins who remain among the living | and monsters-some frightening, for a specific purpose, | some amusing, and many bizzard. usually to seek vengeance. | Yokai usually appear at dawn or Yurei generally appear | dusk. between 2 and 3 A.M. || ONI-"Demons" or "ogres". Ferocious creatures with horns or fangs that are best known for manning the gates of the various Buddhist hells and performing some of the tortures that take place in them. ============================================================================= SOME WELL-KNOWN YOKAI TENGU-A powerful mountain goblin, originally portrayed with a long beak and wings but gradually becoming more human like with a long nose instead of a beak. Tengu can assume various forms and can be kind protectors or cruel tricksters, carrying of small children, starting fires, and even inciting wars. KAPPA-A scaly river monster with a beak-like snout and water filled dish on it's head that gives it supernatural powers. Kappa are dangerous pranksters, known for dragging people into the water and then pulling out their intestines through their anuses. Kappa love cucumbers and sumo wrestling- but if you are challanged to a bout, and value your life, you had best let the kappa win. ROKUKUROBI-A female monster with an extremely felxible neck. At day they are indistinguishable from normal women, but after nightfall rokurokubi stretch their nexks out to any lenfth in search of a prey. According to one theory, they are seeing out men in order to suck the life energy out of them. ============================================================================= ATTRIBUTES OF YUREI According to Shinto beliefs, all people are endowed with a spirit or a soul called REIKON. When a person dies, the reikon leaves the body and joins the souls of its ancestors, provided the correct funeral and post-funeral rites have been performed. Ancestral souls are a comforting presence; they are believed to protect the family, and are welcomed back to the home every summer during the OBON festival. However, when a person dies in an unexpected manner or with an excess of emotion, or when he or she hasn't been given an appropriate funeral, the Reikon may become a YUREI, a tormented ghost who remains among the living in order to seek revenge or take care of unfinished business. In the beginning, yurei were visually indistinguishable from their original human selves. Then, in the late 17th century, as KAIDAN (ghost stories) became increasingly popular in literature and in the theater, yurei began to acquire certain attributes which continue to characterize them today. It is believed that the main purpose of these attributes was to make it easier to distinguish yurei in art and on the stage from ordinary, living characters. Most of the yurei charcteristics dervice from Edo-period funeral rituals. For example, they appear in white, the color in which people were buried at that time-either in white KATABIRA (a plain, unlined kimono) or in KYOKATIBIRA (A white katabira inscribed with Buddhist sutras). Yurei also appear with a white triangular piece of paper of cloth on their forehead-- usually tied around the head with string called HITAIKAKUSHI (Forehead cover). These were originally conceived to protect the newly dead from evil spirits, but eventually became just part of the ritual ornamentation of Buddhist funerals. Yurei began to appear without legs in the mid-18th century, as part of the movement toward increasingly lurid and gruesom kaidan. Some attribute this new characteristic to Maruyama Okyo, a well known artist of the time. In the theater, actors portraying yurei wore long kimono to cover their legs, and were often hung by a hidden rope to appear more yurei like. The outstretched arms and dangling hands typical of yurei also arose as a convention of the theater. =========================================================================== Here are two stories of the ghosts in Japan: BANCHO SARAYASHIKI (THE STORY OF OKIKU) Okiku works as a maid at the hime of the samurai Aoyama Tessan. One day while cleaning a collection of ten precious ceramic plates-a family treasure- she accidentally breaks one of them. The outgraged Aoyama kills her and throws her corpse into an old well. Every night afterwards, Okiku's ghost rises from the well, counts slowly to nine and then breaks into heartrending sobs, over and over and over again, tormenting the samurai. Finally, vengeance is wrought when Aoyma goes insane. (In an alternate version, Aoyama wishes Okiku to become his mistress, and falsely accuses her of breaking a plate so that he can offer forgiveness in exchange for her love. When she refuses, he kills her). TOKAIDO YOTSUYA KAIDAN (THE GHOST STORY OF TOKAIDO YOTSUYA) The masterless samurai Lyemon has fallen upon hard times. It is a constant struggle to support his beautiful but ailing wife Oiwa and their newborn child, and he grows increasingly resentful of her. He finally succums to temptation when the granddaughter of a well-to-do neighbor falls in love with him. Encouraged by the grandfather, who wants Lyemon as a son-in-law, he poisons Oiwa with a supposedly "medicinal" drink. She becomes horribly disfigured from the poison and dies a brutal death. To jutify his murder of Oiwa, Lyemon fabricates the story that she was having an affair with his servant, Kobotoke Kohei. He then murders Kohei, nails the two bodies to opposing sides of a door, and throws the door into a river. Now Lyemon is free to enjoy his wedding rites. Flush with joy, he lifts his bride's veil to kiss her-but alas, he is confronted by the terrifying visage of Oiwa instead. In a panic he cuts off her head, only to find that he has really just killed his new wife. He rushes off in horror to confess to the grandfather, but his path is blocked by the appearance of Kohei's ghost. Again he slashes off its head, this time to find that he has killed the grandfather. Wherever Lyemon goes, he encounters the grisly spirits of those he has murdered. One day he goes fishing to seek solace, only to reel in the door with the corpses of Oiwa and Kohei attached. Terrified, he escapes to a mountain cottage, where he is continually tormented by frightening images, such as that of Oiwa's face emerging from a lantern that swings over his head. Finally Lyemon is put out of his misery when Oiwa's brother arrives at the cottage to take vengeance for his sister's death.